Welcome to Bend Oregon and its surrounding areas. A place of extremes. Poverty and wealth; heat and cold; green and brown; forward and backward; wild and domestic. One of the US's best kept secrets ... well, it used to be! "Come get it while it's hot!" Everything's for sale!
Let me show you what I love about this place ... and some of what I don't.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

I don't know if I'm ready for this, but we've already had our first snowfall ... about 3 weeks early! That's Mt Bachelor with several inches of snow ... and it looks like the snow level is going to drop to within 1000 ft of me tonight!To cope with the cold temperatures around here, many people use wood to heat their homes. Yesterday I went out to collect a trailer load. Luckily for me, they (the Forest Service) have opened a new cutting area relatively close to my place. Here's the load I collected. It was the fourth for the year ... hopefully it will be enough!

The next step is to get it home and stack it close to the door where you will be bringing it into the house. Here in the NW we have become very good at stacking our wood. My friends in Australia, where I also heated with wood, used to marvel at my wood pile! A real work of art!

Funny... just the other day it was so cloudy and rainy that you could not see Mt Hood from Portland. When it appeared again after the stormy weather, it was all white! Sounds like Bachelor had the same thing hit it!

My Story

On Tarawa, The Republic of Kiribati for 2 years of volunteering as an IT Trainer. Kiribati may be the first country to disappear due to rising sea levels. Learning new skills will enable its citizens (i-Kiribati) to gain employment and start a new life in other countries, should they have to move.

“Your greatness is measured by your kindness; your education and intellect by your modesty; your ignorance is betrayed by your suspicions and prejudices, and your real caliber is measured by the consideration and tolerance you have for others.” William J. H. Boetcker